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Continued from page 2

The bottom line on the Senate Democrat budget is that it constitutes a Big Government breakout beyond the stable levels of federal spending and taxes as a percent of GDP that prevailed for 60 years after World War II. It increases spending and taxes permanently beyond those levels, on a path to soar further beyond this 10 year budget window. Again, which is the extremist and radical budget?

The Senate Democrat budget does that primarily by refusing to consider any real entitlement reform, instead content to irresponsibly mischaracterize Ryan’s careful reforms, under which in my opinion not one senior, not one poor person, and not one member of the middle class will be hurt in any way. Indeed, as I have argued before and will again, seniors, the poor, and the middle class would enjoy better benefits and incomes under Ryan’s reforms. The Journal pointed out the folly of Democrat absence from the entitlement reform agenda, further saying on March 15, “Though Medicare and Medicaid are expected to double in cost by 2023, Senator Murray’s budget gives them a pass.”

Indeed, while Obamacare is now projected to impose soaring costs on the budget, nearly $2 trillion over the next 10 years, double the mistaken and misleading projections when Obamacare was passed, the Senate Democrat budget continues to tout those outdated original projections. CBO now says that almost 10 years after implementation Obamacare will still leave 30 million uninsured. But as I carefully explained with John Goodman in a NCPA publication last year, “Health Care for All Without Obamacare,” alternative market health care reforms would assure health care for all, with no coercive and counterproductive individual mandate and no job killing employer mandate, while saving taxpayers $2 trillion over the next 10 years.

Federal Deficits

While Ryan’s budget plan balances the budget in 10 years without any further tax increases, the Senate Democrat budget after 10 years, and another $1.5 trillion in tax increases, leaves America with a deficit of $566 billion in 2023. That is the highest in American history, except for the annual trillion dollar Obama deficits so far, higher even than Bush’s former record of $458 billion in 2008, in the depths of the recession. While Ryan’s budget after 10 years reduces federal debt held by the public to a manageable 54.8% of GDP, that debt after 10 years under the Senate Democrat budget is still 70% of GDP, which is only going to rise thereafter with no entitlement reform.

Finally, as the Journal correctly observed on March 13, “But the folks who put a balanced budget above economic growth have their priorities upside down. The important goal is promoting fast enough growth, and enough spending restraint, that debt falls from its current heights over time.” Ryan’s budget takes some recognition of that with his tax reform proposal. But the Republicans would achieve far more if they also recognized the even more critical need for monetary policy reform, and fundamental change at the Fed.

The Senate Democrat budget, however, does not even follow good Keynesian economics. They tell us preposterously, like Obama, that spending cuts would be bad for the economy, but tax increases wouldn’t (contrary to Keynesianism). They propose an infrastructure program to promote the economy, but finance it with a tax increase that removes at least an equal amount of aggregate demand. The Democrats will tell us anything they think will justify what they really want, which is explosive taxes, spending, and deficits to keep down the short term political costs of all that spending.

If that is what you want, you should be voting for the Democrats. If not, then you should not be, because that is what you will get.